Chapter 10: Quest

King Maximus was surprised when he noticed a kid not being able to even touch the dummy let alone destroy it like many. He made his way to him and observed him. The kid seemed to tense up before relaxing and it happened very quickly but Maximus caught the subtle expressions. 

"What are you facing the problem with?" He asked.

"My system is glitchy," Vaelorian awkwardly laughed.

"I don't understand. System? I heard many of you talking about it. What is it exactly?"

Vaelorian suddenly felt many gazes at him and he saw literally everyone glaring at him. Giving him a weird look. "I am sorry but I can't tell you." He spoke slowly and noticed a few people sighing but many were still glaring at him.

King carefully observed him before moving to the next student. The session was over soon and as soon as King Maximus left many of the people surrounded Vaelorian.

"Are you a fucking idiot?"

"Yeah, why the hell would you tell him about the system?"

"We had an agreement that the less they knew the better."

"Don't you know that King has denied Li Han the access to lost spells?"

"We cannot trust them completely yet. And you messed up by denying him right away."

"You could have spoken that it was slang from Earth!"

Many comments were thrown at him but Vaelorian's ears perked up when someone spoke about Li Han and lost spells. 'Just where is this guy and what is he even doing?' Vael was utterly bewildered because it's been 3 days and he is already everywhere. He made connections with the King and even dared to ask about lost spells. Though he didn't know what lost spells were, they sounded important. 

"Just relax, he didn't suspect a thing and besides I have trust in Li Han, he will convince the King." Vaelorian casually shrugged and started walking away from the rowdy group.

"He is a little suspicious." A guy spoke looking at him walking.

"I know right! What's his name?"

"I don't know. I think he was the only one with one affinity. And not to mention his system is still glitchy!"

"I have a feeling that he is a small villain of some sort. Like those in isekai manga and stuff."

"Let's find out which mansion is he staying at and report him."

Vaelorian quickly left the area, he had a really bad feeling and his intuition screamed at him to not attend sessions anymore. He was far behind everyone as they could use basic spells with enormous intensity that could completely overpower the mana bullets. For the first time in his life, he was this tense. He had no choice but to go to the mansion again. He needed intel.

The white marble building was standing tall as always, people were scattered everywhere and their excitement was as fresh as ever. Vaelorian found his previous mansion and went inside. He saw several large groups that seemed to be engrossed in their own world. He walked up the stairs and walked towards the place where he and Laviana slept. He saw her talking with three guys. He observed for a while and then walked towards her.

"Hey,"

Lavinia turned to him and her expression changed to anger, "Don't talk to me. You think you are so special that I will keep on following you?" The guys started snickering at her words.

"I am sorry." Vaelorian dropped his head in shame.

"Where were you? I looked for you even in other mansions." Lavinia's voice softened a bit as she observed Vaelorian. "I couldn't even find you in the exploration team." 

"I was looking after my sister. We both died in an accident so I thought she also reincarnated like me. In the end, I couldn't find her." 

"Oh I am so sorry," Lavinia hugged Vaelorian. The three guys started glaring at him.

"These are Marcus, Theo, and Emeric."

"Hey," Vael nodded at them despite them glaring and shook their hands. 

"Well, what do you think about Zephyrion?" Theo asked.

"I miss my family." 

"Don't you appreciate this chance?" Marcus looked at Vael.

"Stop pestering him. Tomorrow let's go together. I heard that one of the group found a destroyed building but apparently they were afraid because they could hear beasts fighting and growling!" Lavinia spoke in excitement.

"Aren't you afraid they will attack us?"

"Look at this guy with no bone. We won't be going alone. Many groups have decided to merge and check it out. Besides an elder is going to accompany us." Theo laughed mockingly at Vaelorian.

"I will think about it and let you know tomorrow itself." He smiled politely.

"Spineless," Marcus muttered with a snort.

"I have received a quest by the way, I also heard that more than a thousand people received that quest," Lavinia spoke swiping his hands in the air. 

"Quest? I didn't receive any. What's yours?" Emeric asked frowning followed by the other two.

"Apparently something happened on the outskirts of the city." 

Vaelorian's ear perked up and he carefully observed her. Lavinia swiped some more before continuing, "Someone is murdering people of Zephyrion and I need to find out who is it. The reward for the quest is an intermediate spell."

Vaelorian couldn't hide his expression. He was flabbergasted and his brain started making out several scenarios with different outcomes. "What do you mean murdering?" 

"Well, it says that past 2 days, five people have died and one of them was a 15-year-old kid. And it says to find out the rest of the information in the outskirts." 

"On the outskirts are the shanties, it's really dirty. You really gonna go?" Vael casually asked.

"Well I do want an intermediate spell and I think we can form a party of a maximum of four to investigate. I am pretty sure that almost everyone is gonna investigate and find the culprit so why not be among them. We can get lucky." Lavinia shrugged.

Vaelorian was sweating. He would definitely get caught even if a hundred participated let alone a thousand! But at the same time, he learned something that would change the course of his life. The system the Earthlings came with, apparently had the power to manipulate the events of Zephyrion and for some reason, it was hell-bent on making his life harder. He was clearly no saint, he knew that since the time he burned his half-brother's eyes over a dispute but his days were too prosaic. He didn't have a goal or motivation, to him this planet was shit without anything and his only entertainment was letting the wild animals in the gates and watching people get eaten. But it soon got boring. The one and only interesting thing that happened to his life was the reincarnation of Earthlings, he kept finding them more and more fascinating, and at this point, he was obsessed with going there no matter what. After seeing that his events had completely backfired and had influenced this system, he was sure that at one point he would need to surpass it because if a quest can be given once then there's no guarantee that it won't happen again and this might it be directly related to him! He needed to get stronger than these Earthlings!

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Li Han was currently in one of the rooms of Celestal Haven. He had been conducting the sessions for the Engineering and Technology Team and there were many eclectic ideas sprawling across his brain. A sword was lying in front of him with a blue shine on it, finally, he had successfully coated a simple sword with his mana and because of that, the sword was capable of doing some elemental slashes.

But he was not happy. A day ago his system had given him a quest, it was to find the mystery behind those murders and the most peculiar thing was his system referred to it as a 'mystery' not a murder, unlike hundreds of people he talked with. And it was not the only thing that changed! "System Interface," he mumbled.

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Name: Li Han (Level: 3)

Age: 15

Stats:

Str (Strength): 7

Agi (Agility): 9

Vit (Vitality): 10

Int (Intelligence): 15

Mana: 18

Occupation: Novice Mage

Skills: Fireball, Water Whip, Root Bind

Blessings/Unique Trait:

Gift of the Arcane: quicker mastery and understanding of magical arts.

Quests:

1.) Convince the King and get the book: Celestrios's Journal to Magic. (Progress: 3%) (Reward: Book of Celestrios, part 1) 

2.) Learn the mystery behind the murders happening on the outskirts of Aetherholm's city. (Progress: 10%) (Reward: An intermediate spell of your affinity)

Main Story:

Chapter 1: A Wolf Hiding in Sheep's Clothing (Progress: 1%)

- Join the Exploration Team and talk with everyone.